The 2nd Annual VegFest:
A Compassionate Living Fair will take place on March 18 at the First Unitarian
Church, SW 12th Ave. and Main St., Portland, from 10 am to 6 pm. For an
admission of $5, visitors can sample delicious food from Turtle Island,
Moosewood Foods, Field Roast Grain Meat, Robert's Gourmet, Sun Flour Baking
Company, Columbia Gorge Organics, and others. Different local chefs will
conduct food demonstrations and prepare entrees, side dishes, and desserts.
In addition, five great speakers will include nationally known Howard
Lyman, a.k.a. the "Mad Cowboy," registered nutritionist
George Eisman (compliments
of Farm Sanctuary), and Bo Rinaldi, owner of Blossoming
Lotus Restaurant and co-author of Vegan World Fusion Cuisine. The
event will also feature several nonprofits in areas that promote safe
foods, the environment, and compassion toward all living beings.

Wildlife
rehabilitators say that fur reduces stress in their animal patients, perhaps
reminding them of the comfort of snuggling up to their mothers. So how
can we humans help? Now through Earth Day, April 22, 2006, Buffalo Exchange,
a vintage clothing chain with two stores in Portland, is partnering with
the Humane Society of the United States and their Coats for Cubs program
by collecting all kinds of fur, including coats, trim and accessories.
The donated fur will be sent to wildlife rehabilitation centers for use
as bedding for orphaned or injured wildlife such as raccoons, rabbits,
foxes, squirrels and bobcats.

The two locations
for Buffalo Exchange in Portland are 1420 SE 37th Ave. (at Hawthorne)
and 1036 W Burnside St. Click
here for more information at the HSUS website.

Volunteer
Corner

Northwest
VEG needs over 100 volunteers to make VegFest: A Compassionate Living
Fair a success! If you are available to volunteer on Saturday, March 18,
for a couple of hours, please
contact Maggie Raczek
at (503) 493-2358 or volunteer@nwveg.org.

February
Fun Includes Fair Trade Focus at Potluck and Mexican Food Dine-outs

Join us at the West
Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 8470 SW Oleson Road in Portland
at 5:00 pm on Feb. 19 for our monthly vegetarian potluck. Following the
meal, a panel discussion will focus on fair trade food products, including
coffee and chocolate. Panel participants will include Alistair Williamson
of Equal Exchange, Sarah Cline
of People's Co-op, and Northwest
VEG member Michael Labhard. Free samples of Equal Exchange products will
be available. Please bring a vegan (no animal-derived ingredients) or
vegetarian (no meat or seafood) main dish, salad or dessert, a card listing
its ingredients, and plates and utensils for your use. If you come by
yourself, figure the amount to serve 4-6; increase the amount 4 servings
for each additional person in your party/family. A donation of $2-5 is
requested to help cover the cost of the venue.

Two dine-outs this
month will take place at Mexican restaurants in Portland and Vancouver.
Join us on Feb. 11 at 6:00 pm for dinner at Iron
Horse Restaurant, 6034 SE Milwaukie Ave, Portland. In addition to
its standard menu, this cozy Mexican restaurant offers a vegetarian menu
upon request. Please RSVP the number in your party (required) to Ardis
at roar214@earthlink.net by
Feb. 8.

The Vancouver, Washington,
dine-out is booked at Casa Grande, a Mexican restaurant located in a charming
100-year-old Victorian house, offers a separate vegetarian menu, including
squash enchiladas and spinach tamales. The address is 2014 Main St. in
downtown Vancouver. Please RSVP the number in your party (required) to
dine-out coordinator Becky at nwveg@comcast.net
by Feb. 15.

The electronic bulletin
board on the Northwest VEG website is a great way to stay connected. If
you have a recipe to share (or are looking for something new to try),
if you need a ride to a potluck or VegFest in March (or you want to offer
one), or if you know about a veg-friendly housing opportunity (or are
looking for one), all this and more (including job leads and nutrition
forums) are on the bulletin board. Check it out at www.nwveg.org/phpBB2/index.php.

Local
Writer’s VegNews Article Spotlights Veg Restaurant in Scotland

Congratulations to
Northwest VEG member and E-Bits researcher extraordinaire, Laura Guimond,
whose review of David Bann Vegetarian Restaurant & Bar appeared in
the Jan/Feb 2006 issue of VegNews
Magazine. Located in Edinburgh, Scotland, the restaurant played
an important nourishment role for Laura at last year’s G8 Summit
where as a representative of Mercy Corps she joined activists in calling
for increased foreign aid, trade reform and debt cancellation. Read
the article (the PDF file takes a while to load). Congratulations,
Laura!

New
Portland Veg Destinations Include a Few Surprises By Charley Korns, President, Northwest
VEG

Bay Leaf, a vegetarian
Chinese restaurant at 4768 SE Division Street, is on the verge of opening.
I was unable to confirm the opening date, so keep an eye on our dine-out
page for more details — or visit the location.

The Pearl District
isn’t the first part of Portland that comes to mind when heading
out for a veg meal, with the notable exception of the vegan Blossoming
Lotus Restaurant. However, two other restaurants cater admirably to
vegetarians. P.F. Chang’s
at 1139 NW Couch St. offers 12 Chinese vegetarian items clearly marked
on the menu and will customize any dish for vegetarians and vegans. Other
locations include Hillsboro and Tigard. Another gem in the Pearl is Oba!,
reports Northwest VEG member Laura Guimond. The Nuevo Latino restaurant
offers a "Healthy Alternatives" menu featuring vegetarian (and
vegan or easily adaptable to vegan) options.

The
2005 winner of VegNews Magazine’s Editor’s Choice
Award is www.VegWeb.com — and for
good reason. The well-designed, easily-navigated site offers a user-friendly
homepage with a new recipe each day, news relevant to both vegetarians
and vegans, and hundreds of links to other resources from soup to nuts
(i.e., cruelty-free apparel, ethics, travel).

Each week the homepage
reviews new vegetarian products and asks for reader input. Users are invited
to submit their comments relating to new products and recipes, and even
share their own favorites. Online chat is available for anything related
to the site’s mission of teaching and supporting the vegetarian
lifestyle, including meeting other like-minded individuals.

A personal profile
assistant allows a user to design a recipe box. Building from that, she/he
may take notes from new products and add favorites from the past to make
a personalized grocery list and meal planner.

Another great tool
to be found at VegWeb.com is the nonscientific but conclusive surveys
in which readers are asked their opinions on everything from relationships
(is your partner vegan, for instance) to their favorite vegan burger.

Printable coupons
are offered, some with hefty rebates on Internet purchases for food and
products, and each coupon has a link for comments and user reviews.

Throughout the year,
VegNews Magazine editors claimed to have kept their eyes peeled
for the “freshest, most innovative people, products and services”
to share with its readers, and named VegWeb.com the “Tastiest Destination
in Cyberspace.” As VegNews stated in their summation, innovative
sites such as VegWeb.com “confirm what we’ve known all along:
that the veg life is indeed the good life.”

The
World Peace Diet
- Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony,
by Will Tuttle, Ph.D.A book review by Donna Nikzi, Contributing Writer

I
chose to commit to a vegetarian diet when I was 12. I’ve had a lifetime
to ponder the reasons and to experience the consequences, implications,
and blessings of my eating choices. I feel deeply grateful for the set
of circumstances, the people, the books, and my inner being that made
it possible for me to embrace and completely resonate with compassionate
eating. What has been challenging for me is my lifelong desire to be a
positive influence for others. I explain the reasons for my eating choices
and can often feel a “wall of resistance” from others. And
this is really the reason I was “gifted” with hearing about
“The World Peace Diet.”

A friend in Austin,
with whom I had spoken often of my convictions around eating, wrote me
an e-mail saying that she knew I’d be happy to learn she was finally
able to commit to being a vegetarian because a man named Will Tuttle had
spoken at her church. She said he had written a book about his research
and philosophy. I immediately ordered a copy.

I cannot begin to
express all that I learned and gleaned from this beautifully written personal
story of a man’s journey of discovery and his deep conviction that
world peace IS possible. If ever anyone has attempted and succeeded to
delve deeply and completely into the core of the issue of suffering, surrendered
to the process, and emerged as a bearer of a message for humanity and
a passion to share the message with the world, Dr. Will Tuttle is that
individual. I would like to share just one paragraph, one little pearl
in a book filled with pearls of wisdom, hope, and inspiration:

"We are in the
midst of a profound cultural transformation. It is becoming increasingly
obvious that the old mythos underlying our culture is collapsing. We are
realizing that its core assumptions are obsolete and, if followed further,
will result not only in the ecological devastation of our planet’s
intricate and delicate systems, but in our self-destruction as well. A
new mythos, affirming cooperation, freedom, peace, life, and unity is
struggling to be born to replace the old mythos based on competition,
separateness, war, exclusion, and the idea that might makes right. Food
is a critical key to this birth, because our food habits condition our
mentality profoundly — and because meals are the primary way our
culture replicates and promulgates its value system through us. Whether
this birth of a new mythos and more evolved spirituality and consciousness
is successful will depend on whether we can transform our understanding
and practice of food."

The World Peace Diet
is a compilation of vast research on humanity’s relationship with
the world. It calls to us eloquently and urgently to wake up. This is
both an opportunity and a responsibility for each one of us. There is
a path that leads to peace, love, and higher consciousness — and
Will Tuttle has opened the door.

Note: Donna Nikzi
is a Northwest VEG member and a finalist in the Blossoming Lotus essay
contest, which took place last year. Donna’s essay responded to
the topic, “A Vegan World is Possible.” It was reprinted in
the December 2005 E-Bits and can be accessed at http://www.nwveg.org/E-bits_1205.htm.

The
Great Escape in Great Falls

One of the most amazing
stories to come out of the animal kingdom in recent years occurred on
January 9, 2006, in Great Falls, Montana. That morning the industrial
gears of “progress” began churning at Mickey’s Packing
Plant, a Disney-like whimsical term for a slaughterhouse. However, the
industrial gears stopped churning when one of the cows, later named Molly,
broke out of the pack.

Molly, weighing in
at 1,200 pounds, jumped a slaughterhouse gate at around 5 a.m. She wandered
through residential streets until 9:30 a.m. when police received reports
that she was in the middle of a busy intersection. Officers were able
to corner her between a stock trailer and a fence, but she plowed through
the fence, nearly being hit by an SUV. She continued across railroad tracks
narrowly missing an oncoming train — and a semi tractor-trailer.

"By then it was
a madhouse," said police officer Corey Reeves. "People were
coming out of the woodwork to see." And what they saw was well worth
the freezing morning chill. With police, animal control officers and slaughterhouse
workers surrounding her at a park on the banks of the Missouri River,
Molly decided to take the plunge and jump into the icy water. With the
rapids carrying her downstream and Molly sinking lower into the water,
the manager of the slaughterhouse, Del Morris, looked on in awe. "I've
been around cattle all my life, and it's just totally amazing," Morris
said, adding that it is a rare cow that escapes slaughter. "I watched
her do things that are just not possible for a cow."

Fortunately, the banks
of the Missouri deemed her journey possible because they offered Molly
a sandbar downstream and she walked to shore. Authorities caught up to
her again and shot her with a tranquilizer gun once. She stood firm. Twice.
She stood firm. After the third shot at 11:45 a.m., slaughterhouse workers
were able to corral her into a makeshift pen with metal panels that led
to a stock trailer.

Once back at the slaughterhouse,
employees put Molly in a pen with a stronger fence and voted 10-1 to let
her live. “At this point, I have no desire to slaughter her,”
Morris added. “If the owner insists, I’ll have to tell him
to take her somewhere else.”
After Molly landed on news reports across the country, calls from individuals
offering to buy her poured in. The Great Escape in Great Falls ends on
a happy note as the owner decided to let her live thanks in large part
to the wave of popular support. Molly will live on a range under the big
Montana sky.

The
Northwest VEG E-Bits is published via email around the first of every
even-numbered month. If you would like to contribute to E-bits, or if
you have any feedback, please contact Nicole Bowmer, Editor, at nicker_bits@yahoo.com.